8 Responses

Some things to consider: the oline can’t block worse than it has in years past. Wilson will Wilson.
The defense can’t give up more yards than the field has. Doesn’t matter what offense we are up against, it’s like a neutralized factor. Worst offense, best offense, it’s all the same vs Seattle’s defense.
So there’s that.
In the end, can we win a shootout?

Seahawks win, and I don’t care by how much, because it’s more a matter of how many games the 49’ers will lose after having to absorb the Monday night beating they will receive. Rams are a good reminder of that.

I hope Schotty doesn’t bite on that one, other than for us fans to yak about it’s too restrictive of a game plan. How he uses the run to help the pass game will be the most important factor I think. That nine wide setup they employ has holes but also can be effective against the run depending on which hole the rb hits. Start the initial running plays with Carson as the Niners expect, see how he does, then use Penny with the wider running game where he can do his cut back thing to exploit the openings that present. To help in that, to get to the Sherm thing, take Sherm out of run support by putting a steady diet of DK, Moore, and J. Gordon on him to run him off the line. If Russ sees a particularly good opportunity to beat him on a pass play, take it, but use it first to aid run. With their D line speed and power Russ is going to be more in a quick release game if he and Schotty are smart, exploiting the replacement linebacker and the nickel/safety across the middle.

I dunno. I might try to take Sherman completely out of the game by sending Brown and Moore out wide, then using them as a safety valve while real receivers attack behind Sherman. If Sherman drops to help, take the easy yards. If not, Seattle is playing 10 on 10 with SC’s best non-lineman a frustrated bystander baby sitting Seattle’s least consequential offensive players.

Sherman’s weakness is small, speedy WRs like Lockett. Those are the one’s that have always burned him. DK, however, is speedy and can out fight Sherman. This might be the one big guy that can burn Sherman deep.

So that was interesting exchange Brian and Nathan had about rooting for Wilson to have a great game over rooting to win.

Brian has been saying for a while now that there are many Seattle fans who are really Wilson fans. And that exchange encapsulated this supposed dichotomy.

I think it is really much more complicated than that. I think many true fans of Seattle, the team, believed early in something they saw in Wilson. I think those fans particularly believed as the locker room seemingly divided, and the defense started to erode and give up late leads while Pete stubbornly stuck to conservative play calling on both sides of the ball, that giving the team identity over to Wilson and letting the running game complement the passing game was actually the team’s best shot to win games.

For years, while these fans saw this very viable path, they were bombarded, and often by their own community, with the idea that Wilson was a game manager, that he wasn’t a pocket passer, that he relied on his school yard style, that the defense and the running game carried him, that he couldn’t throw underneath, that he was too short. Staton continues to write articles about Seattle not having an identity, that they miss BAMFs and Lynch, and how unsustainable this product is even though many teams throughout history have leaned heavily on the quarterback and little else. Other prominent voices wrote lengthy analyses as to why Wilson just wasn’t built to be a volume passer.

And through all that, the faithful insisted that Wilson had never truly been unleashed, that he was the way and the light for this team to win.

And only now, when the running game suffered early in the year and the defense is truly poor, has Pete finally allowed this team’s fate to truly rest in its best player’s hands and we are seeing that Wilson is what many believed him to be, and that all the doubters were just wrong.

(Please don’t bring up 2017 as a counter argument to say Wilson wasn’t ready yet. Only the extremist analytics guys don’t believe in the value of the rushing game and the Seattle rushing game was so abysmal in 2017 that Wilson was almost literally the entire offense. In 2019, we are seeing an actuated Wilson with Carson actually providing him with some fun support.)

For me, Nathan’s comments there struck a chord, because we’ve been standing on this hill for years, saying this man is the team’s best chance to win. And it has been a truly frustrating few years, pounding that drum. So frustrating that it engenders a hostile feeling toward all the doubters.

Damn right I want Wilson to win the MVP. And if Seattle isn’t going to win the Super Bowl, that is all I want out of this year. I want to win Monday because I still believe Wilson can drag this shyte defense and special teams to a championship and winning the division is the best way to that goal.

But the probability of a Super Bowl win is low, while the probability of a Wilson MVP is pretty damn good.

Fortunately rooting for Wilson to keep playing at a sublime level is, as many of us have been saying all along, Seattle’s only hope of winning anything this year. We don’t have to choose between Wilson having a great game and winning because, in all likelihood, the latter doesn’t happen without the former.

Composed on an iPhone, so apologies for any uncaught typos or grammatical errors.